December is full of the season of Advent. December 24 this year is actually the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and liturgical purists will enforce the clothing of the altar in purple and all the advent observances until the afternoon of Christmas Eve. I have read of churches moving all the Sundays of Advent forward a week this year so Christmas Eve doesn’t crash into it.
It’s a vain hope. December, and even November (my record for seeing a decorated tree in a house is November 13), are full of Christmas. My previous churches used to have ‘pre-Advent’ quiet days, because Advent, the season of preparation and reflection, was too busy to prepare and reflect. And, I have to say, I don’t really mind. I’m happy to go with the Carol Services which begin for us on December 2nd, with the lights and decorations and Christmas music in the shops. Though do please avoid using the word ‘festive’ in my presence. It just gets to me.
Christmas is a stunning festival for the Church. There is wonder, richness, humility, joy, politics, the spiritual, the very earthy, giving and receiving. Here God, who could only be feared before, comes to us in the form of the most fragile human life – a baby far from home in a borrowed space in an occupied land. This gift is not to be feared. This encounter with God does not leave the shepherds and wise men floored in awe. God’s presence in the world is wrapped up in the arms of those who hold the child, wrapped in his blanket, crying for food.
Just sometimes, though, the wrapping gets in the way of the present. Just sometimes the party loses sight of its reason. But it seems to me that, if we can get the celebration spot on, if we can remind ourselves that God’s gift of Jesus is the centre point of the world’s history, if we can see the birth, and life, and death, and new life of Jesus in one great whole, if we can recognise that God thinks we are so “worth it” that he gave is Jesus, then we can celebrate and party for all we’re worth. That kind of party will not be indulgence and excess, it will be festival. It will be a holy day.
I’ll try to use Advent to get the preparations right, not to get the actual festival early. I’m thrilled that we will be offering hospitality to the homeless through December, and that we are working hard to become a sponsor for a refugee family. Our carols are sung to Christ who was without a settled home during his early life. Those are preparations and actions which are at the heart of Advent and Christmas. I hope your preparations go well, and your celebrations are about joy, and wonder, and love, and freedom. I hope you can include other people in your celebrations too. After all, the holy family needed the hospitality of others. And I look forward to welcoming you to church this Advent and Christmas too.
The Vicar writes
Jeremy Fletcher